Life, knitting and sewing with a dash of vintage flair.

August 05, 2011

Vintage Mess

I've been working on Lisa Grossman's Vintage sock pattern for awhile now. I started the leaves in many, and have been working on the sock body for a month or so. I had a few mishaps due to nothing in the pattern, just my misreading of the instructions. I had finally finshed the body of the first sock and had putting off adding on the leaves to the cuff in favor of working on the second sock.

This week I decided to man up and just get to work finishing the first sock.

Ugh! Let's just say I'm less than enthused about the results, and that's putting it mildly to say the least.

I hate, hate, hate the way the cuff is looking. It just looks messy, and the edge of the cuff bloomed to epic porportions as I attached the leaves using the intergrated i-cord bind off. As a result the bind off edge looks almost ruffled. I went on Ravelry to look at other people's results, and I'm not the only one whose edges are looking ruffley. I also don't really like how the leaves look with the purl side showing. They are attached that way because supposedly they tend to curl to the purl side. I think I must be a screwy knitter, because mine seem to be curling to the knit side and once on the sock they don't look particularly leaf like any longer.

Only half the leaves are attached during the bind off process. The other half are sewn on around the bottom by hand. Those aren't really looking much better. Once the stem is attached, your supposed to anchor the bind off thread on the left side of the leaf to the leaf point on the leaf next to it. That's how I did mine, and none of the leaves are lying flat. They are all bunching up a bit poofier.

Slightly appalled at how it was looking I didn't weave in the ends for the top row of leaves. I only attached them to each other at the points as directed to see how they would look. I'm going to have to rip it out, because it's just not looking right. Unfortunately I had already sewn in and trimmed the ends of the lower row of leaves, as well as the ends for the bind off. It's going to have to be ripped out and fixed to some degree so I'm going to have to just stitch those down by hand using spare yarn.

The cuff itself is a bit more problematic. I've already cut and sewn in all the ends for the bind off, so if I pull out the bind off I'm going to have to re-knit new leaves for the top row. You really need the long tail to work the bind off, and now they won't be long enough. I'm pretty sure I have enough yarn to knit two more in each color, but honestly I don't want to. Much as I know I'm not happy with the cuff, I'm afraid it will just come out the same way. If I do remove it to re-knit, I'll probably not work the spacer rows in the bind off to try to tighten it up a bit. The trick will be to tighten it up without going to far in the opposite direction. There has be a certain amount of slack in the cuff, because the i-cord bind-off doesn't have a whole lot of give to it.

I'm torn as to how I'm going to fix it. I'm going to try to fix the bottom row first. That should be easier to fix. I think that if I layer the leaves a bit where I connect them to the sock body, instead of connecting them at the tips it will lie better. Top row is much more problematic, and I'm really warring against what I know deep inside needs to be done. I tried trying them on to see if a good blocking might help them, but my feet have been so swollen due to the humidity that it was really hard to tell.

Anyone any suggestions for how to fix? I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to rip the cuff out and re-knit the leaves. I may try attaching them knit side out the next time to see how that works. I'm welcome to any suggestions, even if it's what I don't want to hear.

Either way, I'm taking the rest of the weekend off from the cuff, and am going to throw myself into finishing the second sock. So far so good. I've turned the heel and am getting close to the end of the front grape panel.

Comments

Ummmm.... What about just trying a completely different bind off (like EZ's sewn BO or JSSBO http://knitty.com/ISSUEfall09/FEATjssbo.php maybe) & then just sewing the leaves back on in the 2 layers? You shouldn't need the really long tails then & you probably won't have to knit extra leaves.... Just my $0.02.